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Tonight, nothing is long enough— time isn’t. Were there a fire, it would burn now. Were there a heaven, I would have gone long ago. I think that light is the final image. But time reoccurs, love—and an echo. A time passes love in the dark.

They've been so long above it all, those two petals so steeped in style they seem to stall in the kettle simmering over the town dump or, better still, the neon-flashed, X-rated rump of fresh roadkill courtesy of the interstate that Eisenhower would overtake in the home straight by one horsepower, the kettle where it all boils down to the thick scent of death, a scent of such renown it's given vent to the idea buzzards can spot a deer carcass a mile away, smelling the rot as, once, Marcus Aurelius wrinkled his nose at a gas leak from the Great Sewer that ran through Rome to the Tiber then went searching out, through the gloam, one subscriber to the other view that the rose, full-blown, antique, its no-frills ruff, the six-foot shrug of its swing-wings, the theologian's and the thug's twin triumphings in a buzzard's shaved head and snood, buzz-buzz-buzzy, its logic in all likelihood somewhat fuzzy, would ever come into focus, it ever deign to dispense its hocus-pocus in that same vein as runs along an inner thigh to where, too right, the buzzard vouchsafes not to shy away from shite, its mission not to give a miss to a bête noire, all roly-poly, full of piss and vinegar, trying rather to get to grips with the grommet of the gut, setting its tinsnips to that grommet in the spray-painted hind's hindgut and making a sweeping, too right, a sweeping cut that's so blasé it's hard to imagine, dear Sis, why others shrink from this sight of a soul in bliss, so in the pink from another month in the red of the shambles, like a rose in over its head among brambles, unflappable in its belief it's Ararat on which the Ark would come to grief, abjuring that Marcus Aurelius humbug about what springs from earth succumbing to the tug at its heartstrings, reported to live past fifty, as you yet may, dear Sis, perhaps growing your hair in requital, though briefly, of whatever tears at your vitals, learning, perhaps, from the nifty, nay thrifty, way these buzzards are given to stoop and take their ease by letting their time-chastened poop fall to their knees till they're almost as bright with lime as their night roost, their poop containing an enzyme that's known to boost their immune systems, should they prong themselves on small bones in a cerebral cortex, at no small cost to their well-being, sinking fast in a deer crypt, buzzards getting the hang at last of being stripped of their command of the vortex while having lost their common touch, they've been so long above it all.

Startled from snow-day slumber by a neighbor’s mutt, it banged its buzzard’s head then couldn’t solve the problem of the white pine’s limbs with wings nearly too broad for a planned descent. Somewhere an awkward angel knows whether it was dead before it hit the ground. Any sinner could tell it was dead after— eyes unseen beneath bare and wrinkled lids, feet drawn up almost as high as hands. I loved to watch thistle and millet disappear beneath it in the yard. As snow covers feathers that will still be iridescent in the spring I remember seeing a businessman take a dripping handful of pocket change and throw it down a subway grate beside a homeless man. The coins bounced and clattered, vanishing in the humid dark. The rich man said now you’re having a shitty day too. But it’s not a shitty day and won’t be when I retrieve the bird and walk it— toes curling stiff from a shopping bag— to a houseless scrap of oak savannah birdseed drew it from and dig it into deeper snow so what was hoarded by a man may by the thaw be doled.

My father gets quite mad at me; my mother gets upset— when they catch me watching our new television set. My father yells, “Turn that thing off!” Mom says, “It’s time to study.” I’d rather watch my favorite TV show with my best buddy. I sneak down after homework and turn the set on low. But when she sees me watching it, my mother yells out, “No!” Dad says, “If you don’t turn it off, I’ll hang it from a tree!” I rather doubt he’ll do it, ’cause he watches more than me. He watches sports all weekend, and weekday evenings too, while munching chips and pretzels— the room looks like a zoo. So if he ever got the nerve to hang it from a tree, he’d spend a lot of time up there— watching it with me.

The song is Gaelic now, peridot words the color of fresh timothy gathered by red-haired women; or the song is the bony white oak and rhythm of Miwu, a knowing that breathes against angles of granite and meets the ground in a flurry of sound. Or the song rides down from a star over burgundy boulders beneath a dazzling blue sky to find the old words buried deep in the earth. But this heart listens. This song.Hi-tsah-tsi-nah, the precious rain awakening. On this you come as a prayer in the flesh, on this you ride with the roll and rollick of rattlesnake. On this you sing volcanic birthing words and obsidian cools where the blood bubbles down. Oh look, a little girl is lost although she stands close to her mother’s heart. With great energy she scrapes the missionaries from her ribs. Shoulder blades curve around the spine and the pestle dances, acorns flying, and dust collects in the creases of her hands. Or she is kneeling in a small room at the edge of the mesa, polished black bone of earth, cherished piki stone, moving back and forth this act of love, grinding the corn until it is dark, brushing the white cornmeal into one basket, the blue into another, thinking already of the daughters she will bear glowing in the sun. Or she is standing at the bog inside a mountain meadow, hands raised up to tie back her hair with a thin red rag; seeds loosen and cling to her shoes, her stockings, her long skirt, her skin. She fearlessly walks through gold fiddleneck, small mountain lupines, clouds of white popcorn flowers fallen upward out of the ground to cover the hillside like snow. Or a woman gathers loop after loop of heavy rope to guide the head of the horse she straddles and sometimes she is the mare and the soft sandstone and the hot rocks rolling in acorn soup, trying to heal the gash spread across her path where the crescent moon has sliced the earth. Ocean to mountain to mesa, the bundle she carries is a sacred memory, a rainbow that arches from one side of the sky to the other. Or a woman is closing a steamer trunk, has to sit on it hard to get the latch through and the leather buckled; seagulls dive outside the wall of the ship, she hears their demands, maybe one has come inside to brush her cheek with its pointed wing or maybe just another tear warmed by cooling blood. How she aches in the cold, she is so thin; and when she pulls the blanket around her and lies down on the floor, she is no more than a pile of old rags, a few sticks of firewood, a broken broom. Steady against the roll of the sea she is patient as the rocks that wait for the ship along a northern corridor, angry as the storms midway across the Atlantic that shake their fists at those who must leave home, and as deeply hidden as the icebergs that threaten to disembowl. She has already seen the world dissolve; now she feels the breaking of one last thread to ancestral land, feels the very break of it.

The barroom mirror lit up with our wives has faded to a loaded-to-the-gills Japanese subcompact, little lives asleep behind us, heading for the hills in utter darkness through invisible countryside we know by heart by light; but woods that are humane and hospitable often turn eerie on a moonless night. Our talk is quiet: the week’s triumphs, failings, gossip, memories—but largely fears. In our brief repertoire of poses ailing’s primary, and more so with the years now every step seems haunted by the future, not only ours, but all that they will face: a stricter world, with scarceness for a teacher, bad air, bad water, no untrammeled space or so it seems to us, after the Fall, but for the young the world is always new. Maybe that’s what dates us worst of all and saves them: What we’ll miss they never knew. We’re old enough now to be old enough, to know what loss is—not just hair and breath; each has eyeballed reality by now: a rift, a failure, or a major death. They landed on us; we were not consulted, although our darkest yearnings aren’t so deep. Let’s tick off the short wish list of adulthood: sleep, honor, sleep, love, riches, sleep, and sleep . . . and camaraderie, that warms the blood, the mildest, most forgiving form of love. In an uncertain world a certain good is one who’ll laugh off what you’re leery of. That’s why we’re out here, racing with the clock through cold and darkness: so that, glass in hand, we’ll face our half-life, padded for the shock by a few old souls who understand. Now the odometer, uncompromising, shows all its nines’ tails hanging in the air. Now an entire row of moons is rising, rising, rising, risen—we are there: Total Maturity. The trick is how to amortize remorse, desire, and dread. Eyes ahead, companions: Life is Now. The serious years are opening ahead.

At times it's like there is a small planet inside me. And on this planet, there are many small wars, yet none big enough to make a real difference. The major countries—mind and heart—have called a truce for now. If this planet had a ruler, no one remembers him well. All decisions are made by committee. Yet there are a few pictures of the old dictator— how youthful he looked on his big horse, how bright his eyes. He was ready to conquer the world.

We never know if the turn is into the home stretch. We call it that—a stretch of place and time— with vision of straining, racing.  We acknowledge each turn with cheers though we don’t know how many laps remain. But we can hope the course leads on far and clear while the horses have strength and balance on their lean legs, fine-tuned muscles, desire for the length of the run. Some may find the year smooth, others stumble at obstacles along the way.  We never know if the finish line will be reached after faltering, slowing, or in mid-stride, leaping forward.

For Eardrum First hold the needle like a lover’s hand Lower it slowly let it tongue the record’s ear Then cultivate the sweet beats blooming in the valley of the groove Laugh at folks that make requests What chef would let the diners determine Which entrees make up the menu? Young boys think it’s about flashy flicks of the wrist But it’s about filling the floor with the manic language of dance About knowing the beat of every record like a mama knows her child’s cries Nobody cares how fast you scratch Cuz it ain’t about soothing any itch It’s about how many hairstyles are still standing At the end of the night.

This to be beautiful to you Set against all this you know of So ominous, set against it, Overcome, might overcome. This to be beautiful, beautiful, Never alone enough with God Never enough among fountains This be beautiful Spring blue. Leaf love you for this the while I am with you and the while after This earth I am standing on, the Herons and smaller birds possess. This to be beautiful to you The downward fire I spoke of The eel grass, the snowy path, The wide shore, the wide shore. Speak of it, speak it, unceasing, all These lines to the tomb, O turning tree, Set against all this you know of Overcome, will, overcome. Grave tree of the dark plowland under, I will will the whole time to you: Falling water, wave falling, dew Dust, horses, spirits, Spirit.